The penultimate round was full of exciting chess. It
featured two decisive games and the number should
arguably have been three had things gone Michael Adams’
way. Vladimir Kramnik’s win against Nigel Short took him
within one point of Magnus Carlsen which means that
these two cannot be caught by anyone else but either of
them could still win the tournament. Magnus Carlsen had
a narrow escape when he played a strange opening
and overreached against Michael Adams. The
English super-grandmaster sacrificed a piece for
a dangerous counter-offensive. For some time it
seemed as if Carlsen would lose and endanger his
chances of appearing
... continued
in the Round 6 report

Sunday 13th Dec: Round 5 -

There were two decisive games in an exciting round at the
London Chess Classic today. Magnus Carlsen stretched his
lead to three points over Vladimir Kramnik, while Luke
McShane won again to move into third place.
Before moving onto a blow-by-blow account of round five,
let’s clear up a couple of errors from round four. One was
in the original issue of the press release, where we tried
to tell you that Short-Ni Hua was the round four best game
winner. I hope neither of those gentlemen nipped out to
spend their 500 euros (each) on Christmas presents on the
strength of this comment because it was wrong. See the full
story in the the
illustrated Round 5 report.

Thursday 10th Dec:
Round 3 -

After Magnus Carlsen’s two wins in the first
rounds, it was only a matter of time before the
pundits in the press room started speculating on
him scoring 7/7 (which sounds even more
impressive with the ‘football score’ equivalent,
21/21). But that is not going to happen, thanks
to a resolute refusal to be ‘magnified’ by
England’s David Howell and (it has to be
admitted) one golden opportunity missed by
Carlsen.

The only three-point scorer was Vladimir Kramnik
who thus moves up to within one point of the
young Norwegian.

This round had two extra dimensions which made
it particularly intriguing. One was that it was
an ‘England versus the Rest of the World’ match
... 

Round 3 report.